leave the thumbs up/down, it keeps the "i agree" posts down... it also allows for voicing disagreement passively, without causing too much hullaballoo...

kill the karma system entirely... number of posts would be helpful though...

I much rather see a rating system that actually means something...like a transaction rating. Or figure out a way to get 'points' for helping someone fix something...or someone responds with a picture request..etc.

I'd like to see a feedback rating system for sales/trades too. That could be useful for the commerce side of this site!

Buying karma? Well done.

Seems logical that if you want to get rid of some negativity, ditch the thumbs down but keep the thumbs up.

You are just encouraging negativity by letting someone thumbs down a post.

More like a reward for donating. But again, I'm all for losing the karma system, and the thumbs down. Too much negativity as a result.

I haven't seen a gif from you in a few days and I am honestly starting to like you more already. I think your celebrity pics are awesome. Is this the new and improved Ted?

Hey there.. Didn't know who you were at first glance, but the collection + initials gave it away. Nice to see you here as well

Random thoughts

Start by dividing everyone's current points by 10 or 15 to offset the posting abuse in the past to drive up scores.

New point system : 1 point for making a post unless it's in OT
2 points for getting a thumbs up unless OT
-1 point for a thumbs down but can't lose more than one point on a single post
(in other words if someone feels it's bad enough to thumb down you break
even overall)
-1 if you give a thumbs down (you take yourself down with the person)
-2 points if a mod has to move your thread to OT category because you
listed it incorrectly

I don't think karma sounds religious. Just the opposite to me. I would tie the name to some longtime Pinside humor or joke. Call it Shasta and assorted deli meats or something like that.

Maybe show a ratio instead of the total. Ratio could be: thumbs up/total posts

I'm for resetting the values if that helps out. Sure I was looking forward to 25k, and already had invited a few people to my party. My wife said wtf are you talking about, you nerd, but I'm pretty sure she was excited for me

How about just 1 point for every day you're active on the site, plus another point every time you get a thumbs up?

Part of me feels like we are overthinking this.

Leave it as-is, add ratio.

That way, you can see if someone has a high score based entirely on volume of posts, instead of quality of posts.

High score with crappy ratio would tell you all you needed to know about that user.

Pete

Abolish points. No matter what the system it will get abused. However, there should be a way to recognize helpful people. Not just the insanely helpful ones like Lloyd, but the ones that help people out, or suggest a technical fix that helps the person solve an issue. It isn't really karma, but more of an assistance rating scale. Yes, this could be abused as well, and therefore it will be up to the mods to doll them out. A little link that says "Hey mod, this answer helped me". The mod then does a quick review and says yes, nice answer, here is a cookie. It can't really be left in our hands as users because all we will do is thumb up, or down what we agree or disagree with.

Everyone here can look at a post and figure out if it was actually helpful or not. That gets rid of the "mee too" junk, the +1, the GLWYS and all the other stuff people use to build up karma because karma wouldn't exist.

So users would start as "Probationary user", and then after a set number of posts or time or both or subject to review by a mod be promoted to "user". And if warranted, "Helpful user", followed by "Super Helpful User", followed by the classification "Lloydish". General discussion would just be general discussion and wouldn't change this rating. And (Sorry Ted, I like you, but) 100 gifs would be just humor scattered in the posts and wouldn't alter someones ratings.

If I dug through all the posts of the top 100 Pinsiders with the most karma, I might find some folks that really helped this community. But I might also find a lot of people that really just built up a lot of karma but didn't really add anything. I'd rather know that UserX sent a picture to UserY showing a wiring issue fix, or how to diagnose a switch column, or where to buy a good crimper. Or even helping a newb figure out how to change a bulb.

And gosh, I hope fixing the game rating system is next, but that seems to be an even bigger problem. Fortunately it does not have any impact on day to day life on the Pinside.

Disclaimer: Lloyd helped me fix a wacky flipper switch issue on my LOTR last year.

Is this the new and improved Ted?

thumbs_up.jpg

That's what I figured. I swear I work with your twin brother.

I agree here, I think the Karma system is pretty decent as is, maybe just take away one karma point to the person that gives the thumb down. Just some small tweaks would help this out, and sure get rid of the name Karma and call it PinPoints or something.

Ratings are a mess, all the multiple versions of each title getting their own rating messes things up, all ratings should be for public view as well and must have a comment? Giving machines a 1 and setting them all to private seems awfully sketchy.

I like this idea but what if for every post you get zero points added to your karma and a point is added to a thumbs up bank that only you see. Then you can dish out thumbs up from your bank.

A persons karma is then only based on posting valuable information to the community.

I think this would cut down on some of the filler GLWTS etc. posting as no one is going to give a thumbs up for a post like that. Maybe it could be abused too as people could still post filler to earn thumbs up credit but I don't see that a reasonable person would want to be just dishing out random thumbs up.

Or no points for your posts, one point if you get a thumbs up and you get a bank of points to give as thumbs up for the week/month that resets every week/month and cannot be carried over or built up.

Could you add a Footer that auto posts at the bottom of each persons posting such as Vbulliton has and then require any commercial entity, Distributor, Sub Dealer, Re Seller, Ect... to have a small blurb in the bottom. Example for us would be Stern Elite Distributor, Sales New and Used, Service and Parts.

1 point for a comment
2 points for a thumbs up
-1 point for receiving a thumbs down
-5 points for giving a thumbs down

when you give a thumbs up or down the blue box on the side bar is active just as if someone made a new comment on a thread you commented in.

how about calling the karma "score" with the digits resembling an EM score reel

EM_score_reel.jpg

If you take away a point for each "Thumbs down" given, the member with a black fist on a yellow background avatar (no names) would have negative pkp.....

Thats an interesting point, I think he gives a few accidental thumbs down as I know he surfs pinside mostly on a smarty phone, maybe move the thumb up/down to the left side so when you scroll down you don't accidentally hit anything.

Edit- Trophy kept thumbing down posts in the few threads I tell her to check out, her screen is so tiny on the Iphone she just got.

At one of my past jobs we did "karma points", with similar discussions around how people would game the system to earn more points. To limit that, we set a limited number of points into the system...

Was a software development team, and at the start of each two week sprint/iteration each developer was given 10 points that they could then use to "Thumbs Up/Down" anyone else on the team. When you'd used up all of your points, that was it, you had to wait until the sprint/iteration was over before you could get any more to use to Thumbs Up/Down someone. You didn't get to keep your points and carry them over to the next 2wk period either, so people didn't end up with ever-growing piles of points that they could then use to Up/Down someone to death.

For us, worked fairly well. At the start we still had a few team members that wore through their points super-fast and were "broke" for most of the iteration and couldn't up/down anyone, but that settled out after a few runs and people became more cautious about how they spent their points.

On a somewhat related note.... is there a way to do a search for or view a list of the "most thumbed up posts/threads" in the system?

I have to admit I would be more interested in fixing the ranking system than fixing the karma system. I just want less drama and more camaraderie amongst us pinheads. Less petty bickering and more well thought out rational discussions. If a better karma system can accomplish that I'm all for it. I think the ratio idea by pmWolf is a pretty good start if an overhaul is done.

Get rid of thumbs down. Get rid of pkp points or any visible incremental counter system such as number of posts or points as that will still have people +1ing just to get higher numbers, still have a pkp or points system available on people's profile page for the ability to see activity etc if that floats your boat. Titles can give enough of a clue to how established you are in the community and absolutely have "dealer" titles for commercial types. Just show the ratio of thumbs up to posts on the avatar corner along with the heart and existing user defined info or gold, silver and bronze medals at certain thumbs up to posts ratios.

Mark.

First person to come up with a forum ruleset as complex as a Keith P. Johnson ruleset wins 10 random thumbs-ups in non-consecutive posts.

** Please note : Keith P. Johnson is excluded from this contest due to unfair home-turf advantage. Sorry keef. **

My real thoughts are that I think it's ok as is, maybe a few tweaks based on admin perception? I guess my advice would be not to overthink it.

There's nothing wrong with keeping things simple either, Robin.

I think it would be a good idea to change the name "karma points" to credits. This is a pinball site after all. Also I am a Buddhist and it's kind of weird seeing "karma points"!

To me, I think the biggest problem isn't necessarily the karma system, but the off-topic posting (usually in the form of bickering, various attacks, etc.) What if there was a way to flag a post in a thread as off-topic. If the post gets enough flags, it would be hidden (kind of like a tilted post now) or deleted. It should take quite a few flags to be deemed off-topic, not just one or two. If we keep the karma system, you should lose points if you your post gets enough flags to be off topic.

This would all occur in a automated fashion, but could be overseen by moderators at a high level. That way, moderators wouldn't have to review off-topic flags one by one, but could take a look if someone was abusing the flags.

Also, moderators could talk to users that are consistently and legitimately being flagged as off-topic.

The person that flags the posts should be shown, just like you can see who gives thumbs up/thumbs down now. That way you would be forced to take personal responsibility for flagging someone. Also, every one could see if one person is consistently flagging another for personal reasons.

Also, I think you shouldn't be able to flag posts after a certain amount of time (maybe a month or so).

--Luke

IMHO, the point system is ripe for abuse no matter what you do.

Please don't encourage 'activity', so that interesting threads get bombarded with useless crap, OT posts, images that waste bandwidth and serve no purpose, manufacturer praise/hate (the biggest gripe I have), etc. When I see huge karma points, most of the time I think 'Gee, that dude should get out more'.

Personally, I think time spent on making the site nicer for mobile browsers would be time better served.

I believe anyone who thinks the people who "spam" topics would suddenly stop because of a change to karma points is delusional.

If there needs to be a system, give points for thumbs, up or down, positive or negative. Are people going to "gang up" and have a thumb down party? I seriously doubt it. Isn't the average age of a pinsider over 15? The only cluster hump of down thumbs I remember was that macho a-hole lying bigot who acted like a douche, added nothing to any thread, created an account to big himself up, and cheerfully plunked along laughing at the negative votes. He deserved every single down he got.

Most thumbs down I've seen have been well deserved.

This would be a ripe setting for a war. If you look back at divisive topics over the past few months you will notice the thumbs up and down listings grouped fairly consistently to what each person thought. As a general policy it would be fine, but as a system to silence other opinions it would land us right back in the same mess.

I agree with Bryan. When I read through these posts (of which there are many interesting ideas) I'm reminded of that old acronym, KISS (keep it simple stupid). In my line of work (GC, remodeling), it's keep it simple yet elegant, not bold and gaudy. It seems to be a good path to take in any operation in life, and holds true through each day.

I think/believe that there really is no perfect fix for PKP, short of throwing it out completely. Pinside is growing up and needs to forgo childish things (bravo to Robin and the mods for taking on the responsibility of leadership through difficult times). Anything added to the idea of PKP will complicate matters or be a temporary patch to stop the bleeding. If this turns out to be the case, we'll be discussing it again down the road. If not, then all will be well and I was incorrect.

It is out of my hands but I thank Robin for the opportunity to discuss it without discourse here. Though I may get testy from time to time, I feel we are all comrades in this and I would like to see Pinside rise the bar to a new level. I'll be reading this thread to the end but I've said probably more than is needed so this'll most likely be the last of me posting to it. I'm sure there are others that believe differently than I do and that's part of life, I'm good with that and look forward to future discussions we may have.

I'm on the search for the next System 80 "help me" thread.

Steve

If you tie the number of coins you receive back to activity, IMO that just opens it up again for easy abuse. But yes, my experience has been that by limiting the supply of coins to the system, people start to get more picky about how they spend them and it then becomes more special to receive one (which is the point, isn't it?)

Start everyone at 1 million points and work backwards making a lower score better like golf. This will confuse the people who are out to only gain points, and the rest of the people will know a lower point rating is actually better.

I know, horrible idea.

That's my thoughts also. Get the forum too complicated and it could turn some people away.

I thought we were trying to avoid being negative. Now I'm confused.

I think being negative towards things that suck is a good thing. Of course, using my example above, being negative would actually give a positive. See its working already!

(Disclaimer : Reading this does not oblige you to give me a thumbs down)

Im not a fan of the point per comment part because i think that it is already abused. There are so many people that over half of their post are the typical GLWS, Wish i was closer, 10k by christmas.

Some people seem to do nothing but post useless things like that, or even someone "bump"ing their own post. And then you get into the people that seem to have an open conversation/arguement on someone elses thread.

I think that maybe a point for starting a thread, and then points based on thumbs up/down

so responses to threads like the GLWS type things would not be awarded points. However, if you have the situation where someone does something like answer a technical question, they would not get any points for the actual answer, but if it was helpful then others would give thumbs up, which would give them some kind of reward for taking the time to answer

How about thumbs up and down do nothing but signify agreement or disagreement with that post.

It might be interesting to see some kind of Bar Chart for Pinside. We know Robin has expenses for the year to keep the site running. If we see how much is needed, we can ramp up donations. If there is a server upgrade that needs to be done, we can ramp up to get it going and follow progress. (see example)

bar_chart_pin.jpg

Or how bout just a bar?

That is why you are a god!

I'm pretty sure the percent who like gifs is lower than that...

=)

Hey hey now!

But not as famous as some of your other acquaintances.

I know, low blow.

Statement made for comedic effect only...=)

Zeus??

...and taken that way...

This train ride is getting a little bumpy for a sticky...

bth_threadderailedsu2.gif